Friends daughter - colour and composition?

[RTL]

Hello! It's me again. I appreciated all the help last time! Everyone here is so encouraging!

Does this picture look to portrait studio, posed? I don't have a very fast lens, but I left it wide open to blur some of the background, and really tried to make an effort on my composition. Where can I improve?

Thanks!!!



Camera Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi
Exposure 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture f/4.0
Focal Length 75 mm
ISO Speed 200

[justin_ing]

Looks great! It looks a little posed but its hard to get kids sometimes to do a pose or sit naturally.

I'd tighten your crop, either left or right more so you can get the rule of thirds into this composition as it seems like you want the background as part of the subject matter.

Drop the lens flare in the top right it takes away from your image.

PS: I did another look again, I made a decision now that the rooster is kinda distracting from the image. Not for being a rooster, but the too many different colours competing with Mya in this image. I would have kept the focus/feel of image on the fact that the sun was beaming from behind that tree lighting up her hair.

Hope that all helps!

[RTL]

Thank you so much for the reply! I agree about the rooster, actually. Maybe next time I'll use a longer focal length and get right in close - that may help with my background too!

For some reason I'm still getting the hang of this rule of thirds thing. I seem to be missing the mark on it - I think I just need more practice. I need to take more items into consideration before hitting the shutter!

Thanks so much!!

[kevingeary]

Hi,

I believe the pose looks pretty natural. I believe there are other issues with it that take it back towards being a snapshot rather than a professional image.

1. The background is very distracting. One tip I use A LOT I learned from Zack Arias: "put the head in a clean spot". The head is being divided by a tree trunk in this image. There's a clean space between the trees that the brain subconsciously wants to place the head in, but the framing of the picture is counteracting that, which creates the distraction.

2. The gap on the right between the middle tree and third tree is unnecessary. You could crop that out.

3. The rooster is a strange addition to the shot.

4. There isn't enough light on the face of the subject.

5. There's a lens flare on the tree trunk at top right that adds to the distraction.

What I like is the rim light on her hair from the sun. A reflector or off camera flash on the opposite side would have crosslit her nicely.

But aside from the exposure aspects, this shot was doomed due to the choice of background.

Hope that helps.

[Mushky]

I am new here and am still learning the basics of photography, so take my comments from where they come. I think if you crop the tree on the right side it would help with the picture's composition. From what I could tell, the reason the rooster is distraction is because it is not completely in the picture and it is hard to see the "connection" between the subject and the rooster.

[edbayani]

aside from the comments of the others, there is a cyan cast. a WB correction would help.

[RTL]

Wow - I really appreciate the feedback. I'll be making a serious effort to learn from these mistakes for next time!! I really want to learn - some very good points below from Kevin. They will be on my mind for next shoot.

[carlyfan]

She is so cute! I agree about the chicken being distracting, and her hand on her knee looks odd to me. But I have to disagree about the placement of her head. In general it is not good to put lines through people's heads, but in this case it really doesn't bug me. Maybe it's because the line is vertical and only visible above her head. Here's a crop I tried out to get rid of the distracting elements. I can take it down it you want me to.

I also adjusted color balance.
Great photo though, I really like!

Lisa

[RTL]

Lisa - thank you! I completely see what you mean. How did you colour balance it like that? I'm shooting in RAW, but I definately need to learn more about the post production and processing...

It looks 100% better minus all the busy stuff you cut out. Thanks again. Now the trick is for me to cut all the busy stuff out while I'm taking the photo, lol!

I really appreciate all the tips here - it's one thing to know something doesn't look right - but I think an expert set of eyes can ID what is causing the problem!!

[carlyfan]

Originally Posted by RTL

Lisa - thank you! I completely see what you mean. How did you colour balance it like that?

You're welcome! I'm glad it helped. I just opened it up in GIMP and adjusted the color balance sliders. I added some red and a little magenta.